You came back
by The Forrest of Fanfic
Summary: My very first Avengers fan fiction. Complete. Bruce Banner and Agent Romanov had a very difficult path together, one that prompted the Hulk to leave for Fuji but what if he came back? What if, for the first time ever, everything would be okay?
1. You came back

_**This is my first ever Avengers fic. I am completely for Brutasha and love their complicated relationships full of 'can't happens' and ' it's impossibles' but what if he just came back for her, what if for the first time everything was going to be okay.**_

 _ **I do not own Marvel nor any assets linked to it. I just right fan fiction and hope that people read it and more pleasingly like it.**_

This was it, Natasha thought. She was going to die…

A few weeks after the Ultron attack and… _his_ disappearance Fury had obviously seen that she wasn't taking the loss of her team member very well so he did the very logical thing and sent her and the "New Avengers" to Yokohama in Japan to follow a lead on someone who was trying to harness the Ultron technology. Fortunately for them, the robot wasn't quite as developed as an A.I as Ultron was but he was made of sturdier materials which included vibranium mixing with chemical compounds and with the this mission being the new teams first it definitely posed a serious threat.

They had thought that they had destroyed it once and for all after a concentrated beam of energy from The Vision along with Scarlet Witch actively tearing it apart. She wasn't the black widow for nothing, she saw the way the two looked at each other, the subtle glances they threw at each other, the slight grins they gave as a return gesture and how in sync they were during training and then out on the field. They weren't the most normal of couples and she wasn't really sure how they would be intimate with one another…

She really, really couldn't judge them. She was the black widow, master assassin and the worlds second best spy topped only by Fury himself and she was hung up over a nerdy scientist who, in his spare time, changed in to a green rage monster.

Doctor Bruce Banner, he was the leading mind on the field of gamma radiation plus an assortment of other things such as bio chemistry and the sort but he lived under the shadow of the other guy. The Hulk, a big bulking rage monster which could tear a two mile long alien from space in half, there was something strangely admirable about how he could do that. She wasn't so afraid of him. When they first met, her and the Hulk that is, she couldn't have been more terrified but now seeing the man behind the monster she came to understand both sides of the coin and then she did something that she never would have thought would happen to her…

She fell in love.

That's right Natasha Romanov fell in love and she fell hard. She had never met a man like him; he was a riddle a puzzle of sorts. In human form he was kind, caring, compassionate, nerdy and awkward (The last two were his more endearing qualities) but when the other guy showed up everything changed. The Hulk was angry, that's what fuelled him, what made him stronger than everything else but Natasha always seemed to be able to get through to him. Banner was there, under the surface of green, he had a connection with her and that allowed her to coax him out of his Hulk form.

And now he was gone.

After Ultron he had left, it had been two months since he had gone MIA but, like Fury said he would, he did indeed send a post card. She had read it so many times, she read it every morning and every night and she could read it from memory. With all the things she could think about before this scrap of metal with a computer program shot her it was the postcard he sent to her that came to the forefront of her mind.

 _Dear Tasha,_

 _I can't tell you where I am but I'm pretty sure you already know but what I can tell you is…_

 _I will come back. I don't know when but I just know that I will because you're there and I can't stay away from you forever. If you have already moved on I'll understand but just know that I haven't and I don't know if I ever will._

 _I hope to see you soon,_

 _Love_

 _Bruce (The other guy says hi but I wouldn't let him write)_

Every time she read it she ended up in a mixture of tears and laughter at his joke about the other guy but the sadness that was set to consume her always won out and she would spend a good part of her morning and evening crying. She was sure the team knew but they also knew better than to try and talk to her about it, it was a phase. One she would never get to get over.

The robot, which called itself Ultron mark 9, had already transferred itself in to a different host and had grabbed Natasha and pulled her in to the air before throwing her in to an abandoned Kia. She could hear in her head that the others were coming but they were too far away, not even Vision would reach her.

She checked herself again seeing if she would be able to move but luck was not on her side this time, she was suffering from five broken ribs and other breaks in her arms and legs. As Ultron mark 9 lined up his laser, which she remembered to be stolen from the lab of the one and only Tony Stark, she thought of one man, he had two sides to him which constantly struggled everyday for dominance.

She thought of Bruce Banner as she braced herself, closing her eyes and silently waiting for her end.

What she was met with after a loud thump, which made her whole body leap from the floor before dropping back to the hard ground, (Surely aggravating her injuries further) was him. The very man – well monster right now anyway – she was thinking about.

A weak smile graced her lips "You came back." She sounded weak, defenceless, pitiful and desperate which was probably because right now she was.

What she wasn't expecting was a reply.

"Sun get real low." He stammered through his heavy breath, she could see the robot crushed beyond recognition between his feet which coaxed more of a grin from her.

She heard his breathing get slower as the Hulk swayed from left to right, she was happy that he was a few feet away from her, she didn't like the prospect of being crushed. After a few seconds he was plain dorky Banner again. He crawled towards her, lying down beside her. She let him put his arm around her as she snuggled in close, if Stark had seen her now she doubted he would even recognise her taking shelter under another's protectiveness.

"I hope they have a lab for me at that new avenger's facility." He said in a whisper, she leaned down and captured his lips gently before pulling away, a genuine smile graced her lips that day and it stayed there for the rest of their time alone even when the team did eventually arrive.

She didn't need to pretend when she was with him, she could be open with the team because he was there and in a way they were more similar to each other than to anyone else on the team.

 _ **Please favourite and review. I would love to hear what you have to say, how can I improve next time? And what elements worked this time around?**_

 _ **Thank you and I hope you enjoyed.**_


	2. Acceptance of Yourself

**I just want to quickly thank you all for the support on the first one shot and I'm happy to say this will now be a semi story type thing.**

 **Biggest thank yous to Eclaire Stones, veronica2shoes, Superhero geek, untapdtreasure, ktikat131 and R. 2015. These were the six original reviewers of the first story at the time of writing this one.**

 **Thank you so much!**

There was something wrong, he knew that…

She could hide it from everyone else, even Barton, but not Bruce. She was like clear glass to him maybe it was because in some respects they were so alike. They were both running as fast as they could from themselves but as he found out during his months away, in doing that, it only became a hindrance.

He had fully embraced _the other gu – part of himself, which was the first part of removing the thing that stood in your way,_ recognising it. He was the Hulk and the Hulk was him and that was okay. When he started to allow the change to come to him instead of fighting it he noticed how much more control he had over his other, once uncontrollable, part of himself.

Bruce was starting to get a handle on himself and how to coexist with the part of him that was shunned away, Natasha helped him realise that he wasn't the only person who killed, who had been controlled and hunted. She was like him and he like her and that was okay.

Now it was his turn to help Natasha…

Sure she had kissed him when he returned, a kiss that he would not be forgetting for a while yet, and her smile was genuine but when Natasha went to her room in the New Avengers base she came out looking a little… doubtful?

It was like she had spent that one hour alone assessing every intricate detail of the previous hours since he came back. Her exterior was perfect; a soft smile graced her cherry red lips, a calmed demeanour and body expression with a sense of welcome and invitation and a light conversationalist tone.

It was too perfect.

He could see it all; her strenuous smile, her heavily burdened irises, her respectful demeanour often confused with a calmed one with a body expression which looked more exhausted than welcoming and a light conversationalist tone which didn't quite get heard as much as usual. Sure, she was the super spy but he was the super spy's lover and he didn't miss any signals from her.

"Is this going to become a regular thing?" Natasha asked as she walked in to her quarters seeing Bruce with his back to her on her bed. "Not that I'm complaining." She teased closing the door behind her before lying on the bed behind him.

"It was quite a show you put on out there, I almost missed it." Bruce spoke with a calmed voice but it was filled with a concerned edge to it. He lay back looking her dead in the eye.

"Sorry I don't follow?" No change in her eyes, he noted. He was once told the eyes were the widow to the soul and right now he could not see the confusion she was expressing outwards, only doubt.

"What are you doubting Natasha?"She looked a little shocked at his perceptiveness but he only gave her a soft smile before pulling her close to him from around her waist. "I saw it all you know. Your expressions were just a tad too…perfect. Plus I can read you better than any interpreter." He winked sheepishly grinning afterwards like he wasn't sure how it would be received.

"I'm not sure what I doubt." She turned on to her back and let Bruce rest his hand on her stomach. "I want you and I know that much is certain." He let a breath of air alleviate itself from him; he was questioning whether he should have stayed in Fuji if she already doubted them being together.

"That's good?" He said it like proposing a question to which he watched her smile at his awkwardness.

"Yes Bruce that's very good." She shifted back over to look at him. "I just feel that in the field, you and me, we are a liability to each other and to the team and I don't know how I feel about that." He could see the problem; he was very protective when he opened the Hulk part of himself. "I've never been a liability before." She seemed so sad, so unsure, not the confident Agent Romanov he first met in Calcutta but then again he wasn't the man she first met in Calcutta either.

"How about we just don't go on the same outings as each other or – I dunno – whilst one of us is out with the team the other is with Friday on coms." He thought it was a pretty smart idea and with the added help of Starks new A.I Friday they could cover more bases.

"You aren't just a pretty face are you, dork." She joked grinning a little wider at his blush. "Aren't you supposed to make me blush?" She teased again.

"Well not every man has the absolute pleasure of being with the infamous Natasha Romanov." He cupped her cheek moving in a little closer until they were mere centimetres from each other.

"She isn't infamous; she was just an innocent who got caught in the crossfire. The Black Widow is infamous." It came out as barely a whisper and she could not meet his eyes for an unknown reason.

"You still believe they are different people. They are you and you them. You may not want them to be but that is what they are and you must accept the light and dark in equal amounts." She put her hand to his pushing it further to her face as she savoured his warmth and comfort it brought with it.

"I'm so glad your back doc." She said again now making direct eye contact with him.

"I am too Tasha." This time he captured her lips in a soothing and calming kiss. It tamed the widow inside until she was ready to accept who she was like how the people and children he'd known, and more importantly the real Natasha he got to know, had helped tamed his inner Hulk which he came to start accepting.

 **Better than the last one or not so much. As always leave a favourite, a review and even a cheeky follow. Do you want another chapter?**


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